Endangered Amur cat on loan from Cleveland Metroparks Zoo

It's not every day someone lets you borrow an animal listed among the 10 most endangered species on Earth.

But that's the case for Evansville's Mesker Park Zoo & Botanic Garden, which has received the loan of a 15-year-old female Amur tiger named Gaia from the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo. The 236-pound cat made the eight-hour trip to Evansville by truck on Monday.

The Association of Zoos and Aquariums, which accredits Mesker, recommended the transfer as part of the Species Survival Plan for the Amur tiger, formerly known as the Siberian tiger. The plans are designed to coordinate breeding programs between zoos.

Cleveland Metroparks Zoo transferred Gaia in hopes that their two other Amur tigers, Dasha and Klechka, can be encouraged to breed.

"That's the value of being an accredited facility," said Amos Morris, Mesker's zoo director. "The accreditation helps other zoos recognize you have a certain level of professionalism and care in the way you handle your animals and the way you present them to the public."

Gaia will not participate in any breeding at Mesker, because the zoo already has a female Amur tiger named Kaska on exhibit.

sumatran tiger shipped out

Mesker shipped out a Sumatran tiger to make room for Gaia, who will rotate time on and off exhibit with Kaska. The two tigers will be housed separately.

"We're happy that were involved in the process even though we'll have two females and won't be breeding them, obviously," said Charlotte Roesner, Mesker's marketing director. "But we can still play a role in international conservation by allowing them to be housed at our zoo."

The Sumatran tiger found a home at the Jackson Zoological Park in Jackson, Miss., which was in need of a male tiger to breed with a female there.

Morris said the two Sumatran tigers are a perfect match in terms of mean kinship, which is the numerical value to how closely related each animal is and how rare an animal's unique combination of genes is to the overall species population.

Gaia and Kaska are both older cats and lower on the mean kinship of Amur tigers and not suitable for breeding. Their average live span is between 15 and 20 years. Morris said Gaia is in good health and estimates she should live for three to five more years. Morris speculates the zoo will house Gaia indefinitely.

Mesker also doesn't have the space available to breed tigers and would need to add a second exhibit to do so, Morris said.

The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora lists the Amur as an appendix I species, facing extinction and affected by illegal worldwide animal trade. It estimates between 400 and 500 exist in the wild.

"It is on the verge of severe habitat loss and is threatened with extinction," Morris said.

In the past, Mesker has contributed to the captive breeding a variety of endangered species, such as sitatunga, a breed of water antelope, Francois' langurs, a breed of monkey, colobus monkeys and jaguars.

For the first 30 to 90 days, Gaia will be held in Mesker's veterinary quarantine facility to undergo routine testing until she is cleared for exhibit. Experts will test for diseases such as feline leukemia and parasites that could spread to the rest of the zoo's population.

Gaia was born at the Minnesota Zoo in Apple Valley, Minn., in 1996 and moved to Cleveland in 1998. She birthed two cubs in her time in Cleveland, a male and a female in 2001. Native to Eastern Russia and Northeastern China, Amur tigers are the largest cat species in the world with adult males measuring 12 feet long and weighing up to 675 pounds.

According to Caroline Behringer of the World Wildlife Federation, Amur tigers are the most abundant of the six remaining tiger species. About 97 percent of wild tiger species have disappeared in the last century, and about 3,200 exist today. Behringer said it's hard to say exactly where tigers fall on the top 10 most endangered list. They were put on the list in 2010.